A Comparative Study of Qajar Women's Clothing before and after Nasser-Din Shah's Trip to Europe (Case Study: Women's Traditional and Modern Clothing)

Clothing displays customs and habits of a society and can communicate with humans through its features. The type of women’s cover reflects how they are engaged in cultural and social activities. The occurrence of all-out developments in Europe during the Qajar period and Nasser-Din Shah’s trips to Europe and Iran’s relationship with the West initiated the challenges for Qajar women’s clothing. By this description, these questions arise in the mind that what were the characteristics of women’s clothing as Iranian traditional dresses before and after communicating with the West and how these changes could be described and analyzed. What is pursued as a goal in this paper is the comparison and analysis of Qajar women’s clothing with an eye to the status of Iranian tradition, entering the transitional stage and then the Western modernization, and finally the process of this change would be analyzed. To achieve this purpose, the qualitative research method (descriptive-analytic) was selected and data analysis was carried out by content analysis. The theoretical framework of this study is based on two approaches of Iranian traditionalism and Western modernism in terms of sociology. In this regard, the understanding of transition situation seems to be necessary. Research resources are provided through studies in the library and also searching in internet. The results of this paper show that the study of Qajar women’s clothing should be done in three sections: covering, tunic, and footwear on two inner and outer axes. Clothing has been analyzed in three periods of tradition, transition, and modernity from the beginning to the end of Qajar era. It has been revealed in this research that the inner-wearing tunic and footwear during the transition period and the outer clothing during the modern era changed. The investigation and analysis of Qajar women’s clothing paves the way for understanding the changes of current clothes for the reader.